What's Your Definition Of The Psychedelic Experience.

Psychedelic is comes the words "mind manifesting", meaning that the internal subconscious manifestations of the mind are brought to the forefront of consciousness. I'm looking for people either experienced or beginning, using or unusing, to help me articulate a specific idea what psychedelic exactly is, especially compared to other drugs. Perhaps I am thinking it is something spiritual, in the sense that it rises your spirit to new heights, or is it simply an hallucinogenic concept of visual media. Any thoughts?

 

The term "Mind-Manifesting" is appropriate as being synonymous with Psychedelics to me. What this means to me when it comes to drugs, is that the drug has to manifest certain realms of cognition to an extent that is difficult to attain in 'normal' consciousness, at least initially. Mind Manifesting is a rather ambiguous term, which is kind of a weakness in using it to try an explain to people who have yet to experience psychedelics, but these experiences are often ineffable and beyond simple descriptions.

I do not view the term Hallucinogenic as being synonymous with Psychedelics, I don't view the term Hallucinogen as a misnomer like some, but I don't think it is fully comprehensive in approximating the experience Psychedelics elicit either. Sans synesthesia, visuals affect just one sense and I view Psychedelics as engaging multi-sensory perceptions, so I think there are certain drugs that can cause Hallucinations which I would not classify as Psychedelics and conversely there are certain drugs that have fairly mild Visual effects which I would classify as Psychedelics due to them having significant effects on other senses.

I think several components of Psychedelics are novelty in the appreciation of nature, people, music, art, perceptions, reality, body and mind, heightened spirituality and/or transcendent peak experiences. Certain Psychedelics like LSD can be Global in having realizations in all these facets, other psychedelics are more narrow in exploring various facets, like DMT for example which has a brief duration and usually is an incredibly Intense Trip leading to a more abstract headspace.


I suppose for other drugs we could say they don't create novelty in the aforementioned ways and/or they don't elicit multi-sensory perceptions.

 

absolutely, could not have said it better...

GB, you really are one smart and knowledgeable mother f'er.......

 

Words only have demonstrable meaning in specific contexts. For example, someone saying, "She's Hot!" could refer to anything from an over heating engine, a boat, attractive woman, to a hamster with a fever. Hence, the reason virtually every word in the dictionary has multiple definitions, usually listed in the order of their popularity. It also means that, technically, words can be described as scalar metaphors (like up and down, left and right) that demonstrably express magnitudes and juxtapositions, rather than metaphysical limitations, and fuzzy logic provides a better way to express vague terms in particular. In other words, calling psychedelics "mind manifesting" is about as useful as describing a hallucination as a "physical effect" unless, of course, the person you are talking to already has a good idea of what you asking and how to convey a meaningful explanation to you.

Dictionary.com defines it as:

adjective
1. of or noting a mental state characterized by a profound sense of intensified sensory perception, sometimes accompanied by severe perceptual distortion and hallucinations and by extreme feelings of either euphoria or despair.

While, obviously, it is also used as a noun for drugs that produce this effect.

Or, in more poetic terms,

To see a world in a grain of sand,​

And a heaven in a wildflower,​

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,​

And eternity in an hour.​

William Blake​

​

You can call it spiritual if you want, but I would simply describe it as an altered state of mind.

Personally, I've used psychedelics on a number of occasions and don't experience what most people do. No trails, no colors, no heaven in a wildflower, but I'm an exception to the rule and they are sometimes still personally meaningful in other ways that some might call spiritual or psychological.

 

Visuals are in a spectrum with Psychedelics, while the type of visuals you mention are more common with psychedelics, particularly with standard street Doses of LSD or Mushrooms, heavy doses of some of the more powerful psychedelics that maybe aren't quite as regulated per dose on the streets, or that commonly involve other ROA's besides oral such as DMT can elicit experiences where some people have hallucinations, as in being convinced that what they experienced was real while the perceptions have no apparent basis in Objective Reality.


exercpt from DMT trip:

https://erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=89887

DPT trip from Daniel Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head:

There's a few psychedelics where the trip reports and literature on such experiences are is extensive.

While not the bread and butter of the LSD experience, it too has the potential to induce hallucinations for some.

 

Life beyond common assumption.


I have it on good authoritythat spirit dwells outside of the psychedelic experience. The flesh is the gateway to the means of interaction, however siddhis exist that allow communion to those such as ayahuasca, the mushrooms and iboga. Not as effective due to the lack of physical paralysis but technologies can be refined.

LSD and other synthetics are distortions presented by the karma of scientific evolution, LSD and DMT being infinitely more refined than the others.. housing no spirit other than the consumer.

I have a theory that the "elves" presented in DMT space are reflections of our higher self; unbounded in refined creative energy. A mirror of our transcendental selves. More to be continued with that one, in its early phases.

Take care of yourself during your passing.

 

Not sure if I understand you properly but DMT is a naturally occurring compound, that is present in part of the admixture that comprises Ayahuasca which is a sacrament that that been used for millenia. DMT is found in plants such as mimosa hostilis/tenuiflora, chacruna and others.

Most people extract DMT from a plant source, so any "refinement via scientific evolution" to the experience, likely should be attributed to the methods people recently have explored it through, namely pipes.

 

plus LSD is a semi-synthetic and it's main precursors as well as LSA, close relative, occur quite often naturally.

 

A good psychedelic experience is more than just the hallucinations. It has to do with the memories and insight you have learned from it. Just as most of the others who've already posted.

 

Depends on the motivations.. you can swing on either side of the scale, the more respect you show towards the plant spirits or entheogens the more you're likely to glean from them.

The botanicals generally yield a much rounder and holistic experience which, if you think of humanities latent evolution on the planet, makes a lot more sense since we're technically tracing our primal roots. The synthesised chems dry things up a little more, yielding varying levels of clarity but tend to leave you on your own, leaving you to guide yourself towards your own definition of truth whether its integrated and aligned to your primal substance or not.